Where will you go from here?
by ZutarianNaiad
Summary: It's what Zuko asked her. In the same breath he told her not to go. Mai centric, Maiko, sort of. Three, maybe fourshot.
1. Chapter 1

_Where will you go from here?_

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the settings.

A/N: Takes place about two hours after Zuko's coronation-dinner thing, after sunset. Place is the balcony off Mai's palace suite (why she has a palace suite since she lives right next door is because she's an important person, and important people have palace suites. Right…).

* * *

"Where will you go from here?" the young Fire Lord asked the darkly dressed young woman next to him. 

"I don't know… Maybe wander around for a while, get a job…" Mai drawled with a shrug as she looked down at the passing figures below.

"Where?" Zuko pressed, taking a step closer. Mai shrugged from her perch on the rail of the balcony overlooking the Palace gates. "What sort of job?"

Mai glanced at him as though she had only just noticed he was there—and as though she couldn't be moved to care. "Assassin. I hear the pay's good. Work should be exciting, and plenty of down time if I want it."

"You know you don't have to," Zuko told her, finally seeming to relax and leaning on the balcony rail. "It's not like you're unwelcome in the Fire Nation. Agni only knows you should be heralded as a hero."

"Heroes don't help kill their best friends," Mai reminded him, her voice intoning the matter as though it were any other simple fact. "And heroes don't get what they want in the end," she added as she saw the Avatar exiting the doors, ever present lemur on his shoulder.

"You're not leaving because of someone, are you? People aren't expected to stay long," Zuko told her.

"And I'm one of them." Zuko and Mai looked at each other. "I'm leaving because of me, Zuko. Not because of anyone else."

Zuko sighed. "I wish you'd stay…"

Mai looked away from him. "There's nothing for me here. You made that perfectly clear." Mai adjusted her position, stretching her legs out on the balcony rail and leaning against a carved dragon at the corner of the balcony.

"Mai, I'm sorry—" Zuko said standing and turning to the girl in black. "I—"

"Save it Zuko. I'm tired of 'sorry.' Either fix something or leave it where it is, but sorry means nothing to me anymore."

"What was I supposed to do?" Zuko asked, turning again to the courtyard where nobles and foreign dignitaries were gathering in small groups to bid one another farewell. "I had to follow my destiny—"

"—And I'm not in it," Mai finished, drawing her legs in. "Or at least that's what you didn't want to say."

"Mai, that's not true."

"'Good-bye and I'm turning against everything we had together' typically means that." Mai turned and slid fluidly off the balcony rail and stood before Zuko, almost exactly his own height. "Spare me your apologies Zuko. Spare me your pity and regret. If you want to fix something, fix it—and if you aren't going to fix things with me, leave them alone." Zuko bore into her eyes.

"Mai… You know I did what I had to. I had to follow my destiny, and I couldn't have done anything differently."

"Then you're saying there's nothing to fix," Mai told him without losing a breath. "Then don't fix anything."

Mai began to walk, and Zuko stepped out of her way.

"Where will you go?" he asked as she gathered a simple black rucksack.

"Far away. I have boat tickets, passport, letters to send when I'm gone, everything I'll need."

"Are you ever coming back?" Zuko asked, finality ringing in the room. Mai cast what her eyes proclaimed to be a last look at the Fire Lord.

"If my work brings me here," Mai answered. She blinked once while turning, and walked out without looking back.

* * *

A/N: Someone said in my poll that I should write more Maiko. I suppose this isn't really Maiko, but I really like it. Anyone catch symbolism, perchance? 

In Christ,

ZFF


	2. Chapter 2

_Where will you go from here?_

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or settings.

A/N: Takes place in Omashu, where her family are guests of the benevolent yet eccentric King Bumi. Timeline-wise it's after Zuko's coronation.

* * *

"Mai, it's so nice to speak to you again," the girl's mother told her as the ex-governor of Omashu looked on proudly. "All the things we've heard from the Capital, all the wonderful news!"

"Actually, Mother, I've got something to say," Mai told her as they sat for tea. Her parents looked on expectantly, obviously thinking of bountiful rumors in her favor.

"I'm not going back to the Fire Nation," Mai said evenly. "Unless my work takes me back there, I guess. Or I'm visiting on vacation or something." Mai's parents wore similar looks of astonishment at her news.

"Mai—whatever for?" her father asked, stroking his beard.

Mai shrugged. "There's no real reason for me to be there. I'm pursuing a career in the field of hired killing, an assassin to be exact." What had been astonishment metamorphosed into shock.

"Mai! What ever for?" her mother exclaimed.

"Like I said," Mai answered, pouring the newly arrived tea. "What else would I do? Stay in the Fire Nation? Make a proper marriage and go on living like any normal person? I'd go insane with boredom and start killing people for free. If it's going to happen, I might as well get paid for it."

"But surely—an assassin?" her father managed to spit out.

"What? I've heard people looking for jobs are supposed to play to their strengths. I've got all the qualifications and connections of a noblewoman and extreme skill with thrown weapons. Sounds like a nice résumé for an assassin to me."

"But Mai—Tom Tom should have an older sister to look up to!" her mother managed, completely ignoring the tea she held so precariously in her violently shaking hands.

"I said I'd visit," Mai said, mildly rolling her eyes. "It'll be just like when I was with Azula. Except Azula's dead and Ty Lee's busy being married, and having a kid in a year or two."

Mai's parents showed no signs of having been swayed. She supposed she owed them some effort further to convince them not to worry, though Mai was coming up dry. She couldn't tell them it wasn't dangerous, or that she'd visit regularly or often. So Mai simply stood, closed the gap between her and her parents, and placed one arm around each of their shoulders.

"Trust me," She told them in a hushed tone. "I need to do this."

Mai's parents mutely hugged their daughter fiercely, and, for all they knew in this strange new world, for the last time.

"Promise me," her mother said breathlessly, as though trying not to cry. "Promise me I'll see you again. Promise me this isn't the last time I'll see my only daughter."

"… I promise."

* * *

A/N: Nothing much to say for the chapter. Next chapter should interest you though; Mai applies for her job. It features Xin Fu and maybe even June.

In Christ,

ZFF


	3. Chapter 3

_Where will you go from here?_

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or settings.

A/N: This was harder than I thought it would be… Anyway, takes place about a week after Mai's goodbyes with her parents, the location being a shady, underground bar.

* * *

"Sir, a drink from the lady there," a nameless bartender said, pushing a foul-smelling cup at Xin Fu. The semi-ruined earthbender looked up and the bartender pointed to a young looking girl dressed in black. In the dim lighting he could barely make out her eyes—pale, subdued gold. Her eyes seemed to flash once, then go dull as she looked at him. Xin Fu gulped the concoction with a practiced lack of grimace as it coated his throat and burned on the way down. The woman stood and walked over. 

"You're a bit young to be in a place like this," Xin Fu told her.

"I've been in worse. I'm looking for work," she told him without looking at him. Xin Fu grunted.

"Most of us are," he said, though his voice showed no desire for conversation.

"Where can I get work as an assassin?" Xin Fu stared at her.

"How old are you?" he asked, staring at her. "Sixteen? Seventeen? How's someone as small as you going to make a life of killing people?"

"First, find out who I'm killing. Second, go there. Third, the job is done when the mark doesn't breathe anymore," Mai answered as though stating the blatantly obvious to someone very naïve.

Xin Fu scoffed. "I haven't dealt with assassins."

"Then who here has?" Mai asked, finally looking at him. Xin Fu angled his head to point at someone, then stood and left. Mai sniffed the cup he'd left behind and hid her disgust. She then stood, brushed her black clothing off, and walked over to where Xin Fu had indicated. Mai maneuvered through a sparse, small grouping around a table where a woman in her thirties and a very large man.

The two were playing a card game Mai was unfamiliar with—thirty cards face down on the table, each with a coin on it with the two players having a deck of thirteen cards. It seemed that the object of the game was to amass an entire suit of an element by picking up the right card, buying cards from the opponent, bluffing which card your opponent should buy, and strategic trades of hands if one of four blank cards were turned up from the no man's land.

"Full suite of fire," the woman said, laying her cards out and reaching for the ante coins in the no man's land.

"Hey!" the man protested, showing his hand, which held a three of embers and a Fire Lord.

"Tch," the woman scoffed, separating cards from money. "You don't cheat well, Chai. Come back when you can." The man stood, pushing his lost ante towards June and walking away. Mai filled his seat. June raised her visible eyebrow at the would-be assassin. Mai tossed a small pouch of gold into the middle of the table and June's eyebrow went down. Mai then dropped two knives next to the pouch.

"Don't ante up yet—" Mai said as June began pushing coins towards the center. "I'm playing for information."

"I win, I get the money; I lose, I talk. Sounds like a win-win to me," June commented, taking one of the throwing knives. "Good quality, Fire Nation metallurgy. Rich little girl for a place like this."

Mai simply spread her left hand and put a gold coin between each finer. June followed suit. "Loser either cuts her finger first or scores every coin," Mai said, demonstrating the process of stabbing the table through the square in each coin between her fingers. "Ante up three coins if you want to replace a scratched coin," she added, purposely nicking the soft metal and throwing three more coins to the ante pile and replacing the coin between her fingers.

"Begin," June said, and the two began at a relatively slow pace. Mai sped up before June did. June was the first to score a coin and then a second. She paid six and replaced the two. Mai impassively watched June as her half-gloved fingers did the work.

"So what is a girl like you doing here? Last I heard you were in with the princess who conquered Ba Sing Se," June said, eyes on her fingers.

"Looking for work," Mai said. "Someone told me you knew who I should ask."

"I know a circus that could use a knife thrower, but there are other places you could've gone for that," June said, her blade dancing faster.

"I'm looking for work as an assassin." June laughed and scratched a coin.

"They just keep getting younger and younger. I was nineteen before I became a bounty hunter, and I didn't end up in places like this till I was twenty one. Teenagers going out to be assassins…" she added, almost scoffing.

"Why not?" Mai answered, scoring her first coin since the game began. She didn't bother to replace it.

June dared to look up at Mai, immediately looking back down to her ever-moving knife. "So that's all you want? To know who'd hire you?"

"And where to put my name in for good work," Mai added.

"Seems like a lot of gold to put on references," June commented, scoring another coin, cursing, and scratching her third. In her effort not to cut the fourth coin, June nicked her next finger. She brought the cut to her mouth, pushing Mai's knife to the middle.

"There's the Sung-Ha Assassin's guild, but they're more than a little crazy. There's a nobleman in the Earth Kingdom east of Omashu, Tao-Tao. He keeps an eye on who needs to die and acts as a middle man for people who don't want others to know that they're getting hits placed. Tao-Tao is a good man to do business with. A few good jobs with him and he'll start recommending you, but there's always a start-up job or fee. The fee is usually worse than the job. Avoid hits on other assassins, because that usually ends in miniature wars between families, and from what I've heard of yours, you don't want that. Enough, Princess?"

Mai nodded, gathering the ante money she'd put up and her knives. June looked up when she saw Mai wasn't taking the scratched coins or the replacement money.

"Princess, much as I love money—and I do love money—I lost, so don't think leaving my ante is going to endear you any. If people think you have honor you're not willing to sell, they'll exploit it." Mai took June's money. "Atta girl."

* * *

A/N: I didn't like Xin Fu much anyway. Mai was probably a bit OOC in this chapter, but I don't really know how to fix it… And now the end is in sight, a last bit with Ty Lee. 

In Christ,

ZFF


	4. Chapter 4

_Where will you go from here?_

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters.

A/N: And here is [finally] the end. Can't believe I forgot Ty Lee… Anyway, takes place about two and a half years after Mai's career started. And I randomly chose Teo to be Ty Lee's husband.

I wrote most of this a long time ago, and only finished it recently. I just wanted to get the story done.

* * *

"Well, you're certainly doing well for yourself," Ty Lee commented over the porcelain tea service.

"My work pays well," Mai answered, with an almost involuntary look to the wall on her left, which was decked richly with a variety of weapons. "I'm often paid with unique and expensive weapons. See the kodachi over the fire place? I sent one much like it to Father for his birthday." A silence stretched between the two old friends, which Mai broke. "How's the pregnancy going?"

Ty Lee seemed to light up. "Teo and I saw the Avatar shortly before I came to visit you. Aang predicts my baby will be a healthy girl. We're naming her for you." Mai donated a subdued smile. "Will you be able to attend her birth?"

"Not if she's born any time around the new moon. People say that if they have someone killed under a new moon, then greater spirits are less likely to notice, so that's usually when I'm employed. But if she's born any other time I should be free," Mai added at her friend's fallen gaze. "What?" she asked when Ty Lee didn't look up.

"Well, the Avatar will probably be there. It just seems like it's not the best match, a hired killer in the same room with the world's great peace-keeper," Ty Lee admitted.

Mai looked to her tea as she poured. "I help keep peace. People who own land virtually own the people on their land. Rich people have disagreements with other rich people who own land near them. One landowner hires thugs, the other hires fighters, then first hires an assassin, so only one person has to be killed in the end, if things go well. Mercenaries don't kill mercenaries, soldiers don't kill soldiers, and people don't kill people."

"Except for you," Ty Lee said. She didn't look very assured by Mai's explanation.

"Zuko will be there," Ty Lee said. "Well, of course he'll be there; I'm having her at the palace." Mai made no response as she refilled Ty Lee's porcelain cup. "He hasn't been serious about anyone since you left."

"Ty Lee—where are you going with this?" Mai drawled, finally lifting her eyes to Ty Lee's. Her friend's lithe arms rested on her belly, though her eyes hesitated before meeting Mai's.

"Zuko wants to see you. He told me that too much was left unsaid after everything, and you left so soon, and he wants to see you, Mai." Mai didn't answer. Ty Lee's hands fell from her belly to the tea table, inches away from Mai's exquisite manicure.

"Mai—don't you still love him?"

The assassin's gaze held fast to Ty Lee's fingers and her own. "I can't read either of you like I used to. You and Zuko both are sinking away. It's like Azula, or fear of Azula, is what held us together. And now that she's gone, we're losing each other."

Mai placed her hands over Ty Lee's. "You'll never lose me, Ty Lee. I wouldn't allow that to happen."

"Then why don't you ever visit me?" Mai could read the hurt in her friend's eyes.

Mai wanted to tell her friend it was because of her work, that visits could make her a target. She wanted to say that she felt unwelcome in the Fire Nation. She wanted to say anything other than the truth. But she sighed and said it anyway.

"I was scared you would be ashamed of me. I was scared of what I'd become. I saw you with this wonderful life—a husband, friends, politics. I was scared of what my showing up could do to that." Ty Lee, with incredible agility for a woman of her size, maneuvered around the tea table and enveloped Mai with a hug.

"Mai—you're always welcome! You know I don't care about all that! I only said the thing about the Avatar because I wasn't sure—"

"Ty Lee—I can't breathe," Mai gasped. Ty Lee let her go and settled next to her, her large brown eyes shining with tears. "It's all right, Ty Lee. I'll come for the birth."

Ty Lee looked away, frowning. "Come back to the Fire Nation, Mai. We miss you. I know you don't enjoy the Earth Kingdom—even in the summer you were all wrapped up like it was cold! You didn't like the weather, or the people, or the smell—"

"This isn't anyone's country but mine," Mai said. She stood and walked over to the window overlooking her modest mountaintop estate. "It was abandoned. I had it fixed and brought back to life. No one wanted it, and this is no one's territory."

"That's what I'm talking about, Mai," Ty Lee said as she came closer. "You're just covering up. I'm sure there's plenty of work for you in the Fire Nation—Zuko's been tracking down corrupt army officers for months and they're still getting through the charges."

"Murder my own countrymen?" Mai asked.

"Or do something. Mai, you act like you've been exiled. You aren't! Zuko _misses_ you! I miss you! Your family say they never see you. Mai… please just come back and stay with your family for a while."

Mai sighed and looked out the window. A storm was rising.

"All right."


End file.
